Baker Artist Portfolios

Alfonso Fernandez is a visual artist whose work explores memory, identity, and historical rupture through the shifting space between abstraction and figuration. Born in Mexico City and based in Baltimore, his practice is rooted in Indigenous and Mexican heritage, personal experience as an immigrant, and a deep engagement with material as carrier of history and meaning.

Fernandez received his BFA in Painting and Printmaking from the University of Minnesota in 2013 and his MFA from the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2016. He has been a resident artist at the Creative Alliance at the Patterson and was represented by C. Grimaldis Gallery from 2016 to 2023. His work has been exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions, including Entranced, Memory of Myself, and numerous shows throughout Baltimore and beyond.

Across multiple bodies of work, Fernandez confronts systems of power, collective trauma, and cultural survival. His paintings engage histories such as the 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre, the Baltimore uprising following Freddie Gray’s death, and the lived realities of immigration and displacement. Faceless figures, layered surfaces, and excavated materials—often incorporating elements like volcanic sand, marble dust, and natural pigments—become tools for honoring silenced narratives and transforming memory into visual testimony.

Family history, Indigenous knowledge, and storytelling are central to his process. At the core of Fernandez’s practice is a commitment to witnessing — using painting as a site of resistance, remembrance, and empathy. His work invites viewers to confront beauty alongside violence, tenderness alongside struggle, and personal memory alongside collective history. Through material, gesture, and narrative, Fernandez creates spaces where overlooked stories are made visible and where art becomes an act of resilience and cultural preservation.